FROM DETROIT — When you're this tired, when you ache from blocking shots or bumping opponents off the puck or whaling away at each other, as happened after the Ducks pushed their second-round playoff series against Detroit to a Game 7 tonight at Joe Louis Arena, your mind can grasp only one concept.
Don't let this end. Not today. Not yet.
The Ducks, mired in 12th in the West before a flurry of trades replenished the scrappiness and speed they'd lost through age and attrition, played the late-charging Red Wings on Tuesday as if they weren't ready for their season to be over.
"I don't think you ever really are," Scott Niedermayer said.
Especially if it had ended on the same note as their ugly losses in Games 4 and 5, performances they didn't want to stand as the theme of their season.
The Ducks are here, vying for a berth in the conference finals against the Chicago Blackhawks, because in their 2-1 victory Tuesday they did many of the things they've done right in upsetting the top-seeded San Jose Sharks and pushing the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings to their own moment of truth.
They can't match Detroit's depth but they can ride on the shoulders of Niedermayer, Ryan Getzlaf and Jonas Hiller to a performance that's greater than the sum of its parts.
On Tuesday they gave themselves a chance to keep going, to postpone the end of their season. For how long? We'll find out tonight in the always exhilarating atmosphere at the Joe.
"Most players, I'll guarantee you, will have shivers up their spine," Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said of his team's anticipation of the game.
"That's the adrenaline flow that comes from an athlete. As a coach, you're a little nervous. You want to make sure you don't screw up."
Toward that end, he said he would take a "regular game-day approach," though this is anything but a regular game.
"Everybody understands that if you win you go on and if you lose, you go home. So there is enough pressure," he said. "I don't think you should put a lot of pressure on the players for anything too tactical."
Other than twice getting caught with too many men on the ice, the Ducks don't need to change much from what they did Tuesday to earn this return trip to Detroit, where they split the first two games and lost Game 5.
The Ducks were one for five on the power play Tuesday, increasing their success to 31.8% (seven for 22) in the series. They cleared the slot so Hiller could save 38 of the shots that came at him, a dramatic turnaround from his previous two performances.
